(no subject)
This past Wednesday I had a trial, and, since my career is only a little over 4 months old now, I can pretty safely say it was the biggest trial of my career. I'm not sure how much anyone will get out of reading this, because I'm leaving most of the details out (on purpose), but I think this is more for me now than any "audience."
It was a big deal, involving allegations of sexual abuse of very young girls by their father - remember, I'm on the civil side, so no one is going to jail based on this trial. But the stakes were pretty high, nonetheless.
This case has been going on for a while. We were brought on in early January through a Legal Aid referral, for a hearing that was happening the next day. We went to that, and got a continuance for 2 weeks. And then at the next hearing, the judge put us on a continuance for another month, in order to allow both sides to conduct discovery, and to give my client time to file a cross-suit (well, it's not really a cross-suit in family law, but I'm probably the only family lawyer who is going to read this so I don't want to get too technical).
The intervening month had quite a bit of legal chicanery that I won't get into, but suffice it to say, the opposing counsel and I had very few words for each other when we walked into court on Wednesday. And I really wanted to win - my overriding concern was making sure the children were safe going forward, but I knew putting on my best case and getting the right outcome would feel even better because there had been no love lost with the opposing counsel.
I didn't think - 5 years ago now, when I was studying for the LSAT, or 3 years ago, when I was starting law school - that I'd ever be in the position I found myself in that day: making a case that had such far reaching implications on another person. And it was not an easy case. We definitely had the evidence to support the relief we were requesting, but it was based on a very technical interpretation of statutory and case law. We had to be sure that we put all of the proper evidence before the court, and get all the proper testimony on the record, in order to allow the judge to make the findings which would allow him to rule the way we were advocating the court should rule.
It was a long day, our pretrial matters started at about 9 am, and the court didn't make it's ruling until almost 6 p.m. - so by the time we were ready for closing arguments I was mentally exhausted. So exhausted, that when the judge stopped me during my closing to ask a question, I accidentally butchered a Shakespeare quote in my response. While I was wearing cowboy boots. Talk about a juxtaposition.
Judge: Counsel, are saying that I should completely deny the father's access to the children going forward, and say that he has no rights or duties with regard to the children, but we not call it a termination? That sounds like termination to me.
Me: Well your honor, I agree that it sounds like termination, and "a rose by any other name is still a rose" - however, the case law shows us that calling this rose by another name passes the constitutional smell test set out in Troxel.
Judge: (making a really weird face) OK...
But it worked, I guess. Well, that and the fact that we had the evidence on our side. That also helped.
Anyway, like I said, this entire post probably won't mean much to anyone else, but getting that win, keeping those kids from having to be around a sexually abusive parent, it's something I don't think I'll ever forget.
It was a big deal, involving allegations of sexual abuse of very young girls by their father - remember, I'm on the civil side, so no one is going to jail based on this trial. But the stakes were pretty high, nonetheless.
This case has been going on for a while. We were brought on in early January through a Legal Aid referral, for a hearing that was happening the next day. We went to that, and got a continuance for 2 weeks. And then at the next hearing, the judge put us on a continuance for another month, in order to allow both sides to conduct discovery, and to give my client time to file a cross-suit (well, it's not really a cross-suit in family law, but I'm probably the only family lawyer who is going to read this so I don't want to get too technical).
The intervening month had quite a bit of legal chicanery that I won't get into, but suffice it to say, the opposing counsel and I had very few words for each other when we walked into court on Wednesday. And I really wanted to win - my overriding concern was making sure the children were safe going forward, but I knew putting on my best case and getting the right outcome would feel even better because there had been no love lost with the opposing counsel.
I didn't think - 5 years ago now, when I was studying for the LSAT, or 3 years ago, when I was starting law school - that I'd ever be in the position I found myself in that day: making a case that had such far reaching implications on another person. And it was not an easy case. We definitely had the evidence to support the relief we were requesting, but it was based on a very technical interpretation of statutory and case law. We had to be sure that we put all of the proper evidence before the court, and get all the proper testimony on the record, in order to allow the judge to make the findings which would allow him to rule the way we were advocating the court should rule.
It was a long day, our pretrial matters started at about 9 am, and the court didn't make it's ruling until almost 6 p.m. - so by the time we were ready for closing arguments I was mentally exhausted. So exhausted, that when the judge stopped me during my closing to ask a question, I accidentally butchered a Shakespeare quote in my response. While I was wearing cowboy boots. Talk about a juxtaposition.
Judge: Counsel, are saying that I should completely deny the father's access to the children going forward, and say that he has no rights or duties with regard to the children, but we not call it a termination? That sounds like termination to me.
Me: Well your honor, I agree that it sounds like termination, and "a rose by any other name is still a rose" - however, the case law shows us that calling this rose by another name passes the constitutional smell test set out in Troxel.
Judge: (making a really weird face) OK...
But it worked, I guess. Well, that and the fact that we had the evidence on our side. That also helped.
Anyway, like I said, this entire post probably won't mean much to anyone else, but getting that win, keeping those kids from having to be around a sexually abusive parent, it's something I don't think I'll ever forget.